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Here is the list of top 10 countries with highest rape crime. You would be amazed to read that the most developed countries like U.S., Sweden, France, Canada, UK and Germany are the most immersed ones in this crime.

10. Ethiopia

Ethiopia is estimated to have one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world. A report by the UN found that nearly 60% of Ethiopian women were subjected to sexual violence. Rape is a very serious problem in Ethiopia. The country is infamous for the practice of marriage by abduction, with the prevalence of this practice in Ethiopia being one of the highest in the world. In many parts of Ethiopia, it is common for a man, working in co-ordination with his friends, to kidnap a girl or woman, sometimes using a horse to ease the escape. The abductor will then hide his intended bride and rape her until she becomes pregnant. Girls as young as eleven years old are reported to have been kidnapped for the purpose of marriage. Also the Ethiopian military has been accused of committing systematic rapes against civilians.

9. Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s security forces are still raping and torturing suspects. There have been recent allegations that rape and torture by the Sri Lankan security forces have continued four years after the civil war ended. The UN Multi-country Study on Men and Violence found that 14.5% of the sample of Sri Lankan men had perpetrated rape at some point in their lives. 4.9% had raped in the past year. 2.7% had raped another man. 1.6% had took part in a gang rape. 96.5% of the men who had raped experienced no legal consequences. 65.8% didn’t feel worried or guilty afterwards. 64.9% of rapists had raped more than once, and 11.1% had raped four or more girls or women.

8. Canada

It is an Amercing continent and the total reported cases of rape in this country are 2,516,918. These are only six percent of the total rape cases. It is reported that over one in three women had experienced a sexual assault and that only 6% of sexual assaults were reported to the police. According to Justice Institute of British Columbia, one out of every 17 women is raped, 62% of rape victims were physically injured, 9% were beaten or disfigured.

7. France

Rape was not a crime in France until 1980. Laws reinforcing women’s rights and safety are relatively recent in France. The law making rape a crime dates back only to 1980. Earlier decrees were based on 19th century moral codes. A law on sexual-harassment was approved in 1992 and one on moral harassment was passed in 2002. The last bill to fight violence against women was passed last year. Government studies show there are 75,000 rapes a year in the country. Only about 10 percent of the victims filed complaints. France is at the 7th position with the total reported crime of 3,771,850.

6. Germany

An estimate of 240,000 women and girls has died up till now in Germany because of this crime. Germany is on the number six in the highest rape crime with the figures of 6,507,394 in this year which is really a big figure. German Catholics have allowed the morning-after pills for the victims. The country moving forward in technology is actually moving really backward in humanity.

5. United Kingdom

Many people wish to live or even visit UK as it is one of the most developed countries. But they surely must not be aware that this country is also involved badly in the crime of rape. In January 2013, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Home Office released its first ever joint Official Statistics bulletin on sexual violence, entitled An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales. According to report: Approximately 85,000 women are raped on average in England and Wales every year. Over 400,000 women are sexually assaulted each year. One in 5 women (aged 16 – 59) has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16.

4. India

India is the place where sexual assault is rapidly increasing. Rape in India is one of India’s most common crimes against women. According to the National Crime Records Bureau 24,923 rape cases were reported across India in 2012, but experts agree that the number of unreported cases of sexual assault brings the total much higher. Out of these, 24,470 were committed by parents/family, relatives, neighbors and other known persons implying that , men known to the victim committed 98 per cent of reported rapes. The latest estimates suggest that a new case of rape is reported every 22 minutes in India.

3. Sweden

Sweden has the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe and one of the highest in the world. One amongst every four women comes out to be the victim of rape in Sweden. By 2010, The Swedish police recorded the highest number of offences – about 63 per 100,000 inhabitants. The country has third-highest rape crime in the world. In 2009 there were 15,700 reported sexual offenses in Sweden, a rise of 8% compared to 2008, of which 5,940 were rape and sexual harassment (including exhibitionism) accounted for 7,590 reports. In April 2009, it was reported that sex crimes had increased by 58% over the previous ten years. According to a 2009 European Union study, Sweden has one of the highest rates of reported rape in Europe. (source)

2. South Africa

The country has one of the highest rates of rape in the world, with some 65,000 rapes and other sexual assaults reported for the year 2012. The incidence of rape has led to the country being referred to as the “rape capital of the world”. One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year. More than 25 per cent of South African men questioned in a survey published by the Medical Research Council (MRC) admitted to rape; of those, nearly half said they had raped more than one person. Three out of four of those who had admitted rape indicated that they had attacked for the first time during their teens. South Africa has amongst the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world. If the rapist is convicted, his prison time would be around 2 years.

1. United States

The super power of the world is at the first position in the race of rapes. Males are majorly the rapist holding a proportion of 99%. Out of all the victims, 91% are females while 9% are males. The U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics states that 91% of rape victims are female and 9% are male, and nearly 99% of rapists are male. According to the National Violence Against Women Survey, 1 in 6 U.S. women and 1 in 33 U.S. men has experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. More than a quarter of college-age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14. Out of all, only 16% of the total cases are reported. Outdoor rape is not common in USA rather most of the rape cases takes place inside homes.

Police arrested three Indians after the brutal gang raping of a 22-year-old Japanese research scholar near a Buddhist pilgrimage centre in eastern India.

Police were looking for two more suspects who also allegedly kept the Japanese woman as a hostage for nearly three weeks in a village near Bodh Gaya, Bihar state, police officer Akhilesh Singh said.

She managed to escape from their captivity on Boxing Day and reached Calcutta, where she was based and filed a police complaint.

She has been studying life in rural India for some time, Singh said.

A Calcutta-based guide is believed had taken the Japanese woman to Bodh Gaya, where there is a Buddhist pilgrimage centre in the area where Gautam Buddha is said to have obtained enlightenment under a tree.

She was held there by gang members for several weeks and repeatedly raped, police officer Singh said.

According to Ghosh, the woman was raped after she was first taken to a beach resort in West Bengal state, and robbed. Later she was taken to Bodh Gaya, and "handed over to other gang members," Mr Ghosh said.

Two of the arrests were made from the area on Friday and one earlier this week in Calcutta, police said.

India has a long history of tolerance of sexual violence. But a series of high-profile rape cases have triggered a strong public outrage in recent years, leading to tough anti-rape laws.

India has doubled prison terms for rapists to 20 years and criminalised voyeurism, stalking and the trafficking of women.

The law also makes it a crime for officers to refuse to open cases when complaints are made. [because they used to outright refuse]

Worst crimes caused by new money in and around Delhi: Chief Justice of India

by Tanima Biswas - January 02, 2013

New Delhi: The court in South Delhi which will hear the case of the medical student who died after she was gang-raped on a Delhi bus was inaugurated today by the Chief Justice of India, Altamas Kabir.

The unfathomable horrors inflicted on December 16 upon Amanat (NOT her real name) by six drunk men, all of who have been arrested, stunned the country, not least because the bus that she was traveling through a series of police check points. The bus, in violation of laws, had tinted windows and curtains. Lettering on the side said it was a school bus, but it was not pulled over for inspection.

Public anger was corroborated by near-daily demonstrations for two weeks in Delhi and elsewhere, while she fought for her life first at a hospital in Delhi and then Singapore.

"If the Supreme Court directive to remove tinted glasses (from buses) was followed strictly this may not have happened," the Chief Justice said. "Delhi is surrounded by areas which were villages," he said, adding, people have "so much money now they don't know what to do with it....most of these offenders come from the lowest or highest echelons of society."
"The incident of December 16 happens every day," the Chief Justice said. "A ten-year-old Dalit girl was gang-raped and set on fire the same day," he said.

"The immediate reaction of people has been that don't put these persons to trial, hand them over to us, we will deal with them, hang them."

Now these kinds of sentiments, which are emotional, are rather dangerous sentiments. But these emotions will continue until the matter comes to us and we deal with them expeditiously," Justice Altamas Kabir said.

Initially barricaded from public sorrow and rage by inexplicable reserve, the government eventually course-corrected by asking for five fast-track courts to be set up in Delhi to handle cases of rape and sexual assault. The notoriously slow legal system has so far abetted in the perception that there are few deterrents for those who sexually assault or harass women - last year, of the nearly 600 rape cases reported in the capital, there was just one conviction.

"The students came out in protest for this case of the 23-year-old victim's case," Justice Kabir said. "Their anger has to be contained," he said.

The court he inaugurated today will hold daily hearings for Amanat's case. The police will tomorrow share a 1000 page charge sheet against the five men accused of raping and murdering her; the sixth is a minor and his case will be handled by a juvenile justice court, unless a bone test finds he is 18 or older.

INDIA'S EPIDEMIC STATS:
Rape is reported every 20 minutes75% of the cases that made it to court in 2011 were acquitted

November 03, 2016Three women were gang-raped at gun-point by six men who pretended to be policemen, in the early hours of Wednesday in Greater Noida near Delhi.

The women worked at a brick kiln. The incident took place at around 12.30 AM on Wednesday.

Police say the armed men locked up other factory workers and looted their houses nearby before assaulting the women.

"They looted around 5000-7000 rupees, a few items of silver...but more than the loot it is what happened to the women that is horrible," Bhupesh Bhati, the owner of the brick kiln, said.

A case has been registered, said senior Noida police officer Sujata Singh.

The husband of one of the women has reportedly told the police that the attackers came to their house after midnight on Tuesday, claiming to be policemen investigating a case. The men barged in, dragged out his wife and took turns to rape her. They did the same with two other women.

Policing in Uttar Pradesh came under sharp focus after armed robbers stopped a family on the highway in Bulandshahr, dragged out a woman and her teen daughter and gang-raped them in July.

Indian Cops Asked Rape Survivor, 'Which One Gave You The Greatest Pleasure?'

November 03, 2016

A woman in Kerala who was gang-raped by her husband's friends wept as she went public with her story today and said she was forced to withdraw her complaint because of humiliation by the police. "Which one of them gave you the greatest pleasure?" she was asked by a police officer.
"Far more than rape, it was the police threats and humiliation that was unbearable," the 32-year-old woman said in Thiruvananthapuram, speaking to reporters with her husband by her side, both their faces covered.

The woman first shared her story with prominent dubbing artiste and activist Bhagya Lakshmi, whose Facebook post has been widely circulated and has drawn a response from Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. She called the artiste after watching her in a TV discussion recently.

"She told me it's fortunate that Jisha and Soumya died or they would have to face repeated humiliation," Ms Bhagya Lakshmi wrote in her post.

The Chief Minister and Kerala police chief are expected to meet the woman today.

Two years ago, the woman said, when her husband was away, four of his friends came to her house in Thrissur, around 280 km from Thiruvananthapuram, and claimed he was in hospital. She went with them, but they drove her somewhere outside the city.

The woman alleged that the men took turns to rape her.

After two years, the woman confided in her husband, who urged her in August to go to the police. "I was called to the police station for four days continuously and made to sit there from morning to evening. I was asked humiliating questions," the woman said.

She alleges harassment by the police in her neighborhood, who demanded to know why she had gone to the women's cell. "They later gave me a letter to produce before the magistrate and forced me to withdraw the case. They made me sign papers but I don't know what was in it," she said.

The woman has named her rapists; one of them, a CPM councilor, has accused the woman of lying and getting back at him for demanding money he loaned to the couple.

Muslim woman accuses MP cops of forcing her into having 'unnatural sex' with her son

Oct 07, 2016

In a horrific tell-all, a Muslim woman in Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s home district Sehore has alleged that the Siddiqganj police in Ashta forced her son to molest her and made them drink each other’s urine in the custody.

The woman Shabnam (name changed) in an affidavit alleged that police detained her, her husband, son and four other minor children and brutally beat them and made all of them to drink each other’s urine in a bid to force them to confess to the ‘murder’ of their missing daughter-in-law.
She also alleged that police also forced them to perform unnatural sex on each other, says a report in DB Post.

According to the report, the missing daughter-in-law was found by her family in Bhopal on September 19.

Shabnam, 40, also said that Siddiqganj police station in-charge Rakesh Sharma is threatening the family with serious consequences and false case if she pursued the case further.

Shabnam, a resident of Singerchauri, said that her daughter-in-law went missing from home and the girl’s brother filed a habeas corpus and a missing complaint was filed in Siddiqganj police.

Shabnam’s family was detained by police for 15 days following the complaint and were allegedly tortured by the cops at the police station.

The woman’s lawyer Virendra Parmar said that his client’s son confessed to the murder under duress and led them to local graveyard.

“The police exhumed three bodies at the graveyard but none of them were of the identified as the missing daughter-in-law’s body,” Parmar said.

Shabnam had also filed a complaint with Chief Minister Office, DGP, State Human Rights Commission, district SP and DIG Sehore on September 28, but all in vain.

In a shocking incident, a Mumbai man was caught on camera while torturing his mother. The 47-year-old sweeper, named Surendra Vaid, resident of Andheri (west) has been arrested for allegedly trying to strangle his 80-year-old mother at the "his wife's instructions" while his daughter filmed the goings-on.

The video went viral on WhatsApp recently after which an NGO, Nari Saman Sangathan, lodged a complaint at DN Nagar police station.

The complaint states that the sweeper, Surendra Vaid, held the legs of his mother, Mayawati, and tied one leg to a cloth with its end knotted to the ceiling fan.The mother is on the floor and he drags her across the room.

She still lives with Surendra, his wife Babita (42) and daughter Akshaya (19). The police said she is in good health. Senior inspector DS Nalawade said the cause of the torture is unknown.

The police said Surendra claimed he tortured his mother at his wife's behest. The three were sent to custody.

Indian-American Woman CEO ‘forced maid to sleep near dogs, starved her for days’’

Sep 07, 2016

An Indian American head of an IT consulting firm who has figured among top women business leaders has been accused by the US government of grossly underpaying her live-in domestic help from India and mistreating her by making her sleep in the garage with the family’s dogs when unwell.

Himanshu Bhatia, the founder of Rose International, which earned $357 million in 2011, has been charged by the US labor department of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. She was also accused of subjecting the help, Sheela Ningwal, to “callous abuse” and punishing her for pursuing her rights, according to a complaint filed in a federal court in California on August 22.

There was no response to a request for comment from Rose International, which is headquartered in St Louis, Missouri. According to court documents, summons were ordered to be issued to Bhatia the day after the complaint.

Bhatia, who was born in Delhi and went to the School of Planning and Architecture, was named among the 25 top women business leaders in the US by Fast Company web magazine in 2012.

She and her family live in San Juan Capistrano, California, and own “mansions, luxury penthouse condominiums in Las Vegas, Long Beach, and Miami”, according to the labor department’s complaint.

Ningwal worked primarily at the family home but also at their other establishments. She was paid a fixed monthly salary of $400, with food and accommodation, regardless of the number of hours of work. The department of labor said this was “grossly below the statutorily mandated minimum wage”.

Describing the abuse, the complaint, filed in the name of US labor secretary Tom Perez, said whenever “Ningwal was ill, Defendant Bhatia forced Ms Ningwal to sleep in the garage on a piece of carpet, alongside Defendant Bhatia’s dogs who slept on a mattress, because Defendant Bhatia did not want her or her family exposed to Ms Ningwal’s illness”.

When traveling, the family would “neglect to leave food” for Ningwal, who was dependent on them.

Her passport was taken from her, and given to her only at the time of travel. Ningwal was fired twice in 2104 – once because she was researching “labor laws” online.

The complaint sought the payment of unpaid wages and damages.

This is not the first time an Indian or an Indian-origin American has been in trouble over domestic help.

In 2013, an Indian Foreign Service officer was arrested in New York for paying the help much lower wages than the amount shown in visa application papers, throwing India-US relations into a major crisis — secretary of state John Kerry has said it was the worst on his watch.

Born as Hindu, but will die as Muslim, say Dalits after conversion in Delhi

08 Aug 2015

More than 50 members of the Hindu Dalit community converted to Islam near Parliament House here on Saturday afternoon. They recited Kalimah(testimony of faith) and offered Namaz(prayer) on the roadside at Jantar Mantar. They had made their intention public a week ago. They had been holding sit-in at Jantar Mantar for over two years seeking justice for the atrocities unleashed on them by members of Hindu Jat community in Bhagana village of Hisar district in Haryana.
"We have been facing untouchability, atrocity, boycott and gang-rape - at the root of all these problems is the Hinduwadi system. While living in this system, no friend from outside helps us saying it is our internal issue. We have thought that if we have to save our future, if not present, then we will have to go out of this system," said Satish Kajla wearing a white Muslim skullcap. He is one of the victims who converted to Islam today.

If you get justice tomorrow, will you remove this Muslim cap and go out of Islam?

"Never. Never. Even if we get justice we will not return to Hindu religion," Kajla said.

Facing persecution and boycott by upper caste Hindus in Hisar for over four years, they had hinted at converting to Islam. In a written statement, the victim families had said some of the victims have already converted to Islam in protest against the atrocities of upper caste Hindus.

"Continuously facing untouchability, atrocities and injustice, 500 families of Bhagana (village) will convert in front of the Parliament House in New Delhi and will demand arrest of culprits and guilty officers and restoration to their homes," Bhagana Sangharsh Samiti, a committee formed by the victim families to fight for justice, had said.
"Bhagana victims have been running from pillar to post for justice for the last four years. Despite dozens of protests, court arrests and continuous sit-in from Hisar to Jantar Mantar, the Dalits have not got justice, security and respect. Saddened with the atrocities of upper caste Hindus, some victims have converted to Islam as a mark of protest," said the Samiti.

According to the Samiti, Khap Panchayats had boycotted 250 Dalit families and forced them to flee the village in 2011. The Jats illegally occupied 280 acres of land and stopped Dalits from using them. "When we went to lodge a complaint with the administration against the atrocities, the local police, under pressure from the upper-caste Jats, registered a case of sedition against the victims themselves and sent them to jail," claimed Samiti. The Dalits were attacked and their minors were gang-raped, it said.

"We had to leave our village on 21 May 2012 as our life had become miserable - barbers were not cutting our hair, facing problems while travelling. Our kids were removed from schools, we were pushed out of temples, denied using pond, general stores. Khap panchayat warned that whoever maintains relations with us he will be slapped with a fine of Rs 1100," said Virendra Singh Bagoria of Bhagana Sangharsh Samiti. Bagoria also converted to Islam today.

"We put our case before authorities; none heard us, met politicians, local MLAs, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi but none cared for us. New government came both in Haryana and Centre and hoped they will hear us. Rather than resolving our issues, this government imposed cases on us while were protesting peacefully in Hisar," said Bagoria.

"After we left village, the government said there is peace in the village. But in between, they have kidnapped four minors and raped them. A person from backward community was gunned down in full public view. Two girls were also kidnaped and raped and they became pregnant. Even five days ago, a girl from backward class was forcibly lifted and married. Notwithstanding, the government says there is peace and communal harmony in the village," he said.
"Hindu leaders do not consider us human; they do not want to give us justice. They don't want to give us share in the resources and system of the country. Life was getting miserable and this has forced our heart to change faith; we cannot live in this Hindu system and we have embraced Islam," said Bagoria.

Sanjay Bura, a youth from the Jat community, also changed his religion.

"I belong to the caste which unleashed atrocities on these Dalits. I stood in solidarity with them in their grief. I consider myself as a Dalit. I have seen their pain not only in Bhagana but other places also. I have also converted to Islam along with them," said Bura.
"The Varna system in Hindu religion allows untouchability and discrimination with men. I am against this system. The new government (of BJP) is working on special agenda and capturing constitutional institutions. They work according to the Manuwadi agenda to suppress dalits and minorities," he said.
"I support ideas of unity and equality. Islam is seen as a great example of quality in the world. I have faith in it," Bura said.

Many sounded very grieved with the situation as no political parties are listening to them.

"Constitution is nothing but law only in book. There is only rule of musclemen. If your stick is powerful then you have all things. Otherwise you have nothing. I was definitely born as Hindu but I will not die as Hindu," said a protestor.

This is not the only Dalit community to embrace Islam and leave Hinduism because of oppression. There have been many communities in India who have and are doing this, and then the Hindus try to say that Muslims are forcing the Dalits to become Muslims.

If a guy under 16 years of age has consensual sex with a girl of his age, he's a rapist. Also, men can be raped, stalked, harassed and it will not be an offense

by Amanda - 19 November 2016

Every year since 1992, the date of November 19 is celebrated as International Men's Day worldwide. The objective of this event is to celebrate the existence of the gender, their contribution to the society and to improve gender relations.

Coming to India, which is a patriarchal society on a larger basis, there are still some laws which are sexist and unfair towards men and are a hurdle in the goal of gender equality. These laws were apparently made after considering the violence committed on women. But most of them are illogical and were irrelevant in that era also.

1. If a guy under 16 years of age has consensual sex with a girl of his age, he's a rapist.

According to the sixth situation listed in Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code , if a 16-year-old guy and girl have sex, she's been raped! Not only the law is extremely sexist but also highly illogical. 'Sex' without consent is 'rape' but this law directly refuse to obey the concept of consent.

2. A boy is entitled to maintenance only till he turns 18, whereas a girl is entitled to maintenance till she gets married.

Under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act of 1956 , it is the parents' responsibility to a girl child's maintenance till she decides to provide for herself or gets married. The law was made at a time when women were only supposed to do household chores and getting them married was the prime goal of their family. Although Indian society doesn't literally use this law but it's totally irrelevant today.

3. Only the man is prosecuted for adultery.

According to Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code , if the husband commits adultery with the wife of another man, he can be prosecuted for the same. But if a woman commits adultery with the husband of another woman, she cannot be prosecuted. This one is an utterly sexist law and totally unfair towards men.

4. If a man has sex on the pretext of marriage and doesn't marry, it amounts to rape.

The fourth point of Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code states that if a man has sex with a woman after promising marriage, he can't break up with the woman. If he does, according to the laws in India, he's a rapist. This is one of the most misused law right now as several men landed up in prison after they were charged with rape by their ex-girlfriends. A Bombay HC recently observed the injustice and said the police should check if the case is genuine or not.

5. The father of the deceased doesn't inherit property, but the mother does

Under the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 , if the deceased has no will, the spouse, mother and children inherit the property belonging to the deceased. The father is only entitled if the deceased does not have a spouse, mother or children. On a related note, there were laws which held male child the inheritor of his father's property. It was later rectified with clause that female child have a right to them too. However, the same improvisation was not applied to this law.

6. If a woman is treated with physical or mental cruelty by her husband and his family, she can throw them behind bars.

No doubt this law made to stop the rising domestic violence against women was a very good step. However, it is the most misused law in India. The reason behind it lies in the Section 498 A of the Indian Penal Code which says that the woman doesn't need to give any evidence whatsoever. No wonder, there are high numbers of false cases.

7. Under the Special Marriage Act, only the wife can claim permanent alimony and maintenance

The law was made at a time when women didn't have a source of income and were deserted after divorce. But now, when on one side women are fighting to be independent, these dependent laws makes us sigh. Although under the Hindu Marriage Act, both the man and woman can claim permanent alimony and maintenance, but under Section 37 of the Special Marriage Act of 1954 , it isn't so.

8. If the death of the woman is caused by burns or bodily injury within 7 years of marriage, it's the husband's fault

It's hard to believe but yes this law does exist in the Indian constitution. According to the Section 304 B of the Indian Penal Code, the husband will be held responsible for her death even in a house fire which he wasn't aware of.

9. Men can be raped, stalked, sexually harassed and it will not be considered an offense

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 was an improvisation the rape law just after the murder of 'Nirbhaya', the victim of Delhi gangrape case on Dec 16, 2012. The country saw a huge revolution after her death with thousands of people coming on the roads to demand justice for her. However, feminists of the countries demanded this amendment in which the sexual offense were no longer gender-neutral.

The law directly refuse to believe that these offenses are committed on men too. Even before the amendment, there were only a few men who dared to disclose that such heinous crimes were committed on them. But the law makes that even more impossible. On the other side, it refuses the existence of marital rape. Way to go logic. The law has been strongly criticized by several human rights and women's rights organizations as well.

Apparently, the quote 'crime doesn't have a gender' doesn't apply in real life.

Several men activists and human rights organizations are fighting for the abolition of these laws and the International Men's Day is the perfect day to witness some changes.

Untouchability is worse than slavery, said Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, one of India's greatest statesmen and the undisputed leader of the country's Dalits.

by Soutik Biswas - 10 May 2016

Dalits (formerly known as untouchables) are some of the republic's most wretched citizens because of an unforgiving Hindu caste hierarchy that condemns them to the bottom of the heap.

Although untouchability among Hindus is widely documented and debated, its existence among India's Muslims is rarely discussed.

One reason possibly is that Islam does not recognize caste, and promotes equality and egalitarianism.

Most of India's 140 million Muslims are descended from local converts. Many of them converted to Islam to escape Hindu upper-caste oppression.

'Lived reality'

Their descendants form the overwhelming majority - 75% - of the present Indian Muslim population, and they are called the Dalit Muslims, according to Ejaz Ali, leader of an organization representing socially disadvantaged Muslims.

"But caste and untouchability is a lived reality for Muslims living in India and South Asia," Dr Aftab Alam, a political scientist who has worked on the subject, told me. "And untouchability is the community's worst-kept secret."

Studies have claimed that "concepts of purity and impurity; clean and unclean castes" do exist among Muslims’ groups.

A book by Ali Anwar says while Dalits are called asprishya (untouchable) in Hindu society, they are called arzal (inferior) among the Muslims. A 2009 study by Dr Alam found there was not a single "Dalit Muslim" in any of the prominent Muslim organizations, which were dominated essentially by four "upper-caste" Muslim groups.

Now a major study - possibly the first its kind - by a group of researchers reveals that the scourge of untouchability is alive and well among Indian Muslims.

Prashant K Trivedi, Srinivas Goli, Fahimuddin and Surinder Kumar polled more than 7,000 households across 14 districts between October 2014 and April 2015 in the populous northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

'Food from different plates'

Some of their findings include:

§ A substantial proportion of the "Dalit Muslims" report that they do not receive an invitation from non-Dalits for wedding feasts, possibly because of a history of social segregation.

§ A section of "Dalit Muslims" testify that they are seated separately in non-Dalit Muslim feasts. Almost a similar proportion of respondents confirm that they eat after the upper-caste people have finished. Many say they are served food on different plates.

§ Around 8% of "Dalit Muslim" respondents report that their children are seated in separate rows in classes and also during school lunches.

§ At least a third of them state that they are not allowed to bury their dead in an "upper-caste" burial ground. They do so either in some other place or in one corner of the main ground.

§ Most of the Muslims offer prayers in the same mosque, but in some places "Dalit Muslims" felt discriminated against in the main mosque.

§ A significant section of "Dalit Muslims" also feel that their community is seen as being associated with menial jobs.

§ When "Dalit Muslim" respondents were requested to share their experiences inside homes of upper-caste Hindus and Muslims, around 13% of them reported having received food/water in different utensils in "upper-caste" Muslim houses. This proportion is close to 46% in the case of upper-caste Hindu homes.

§ Similarly, around a fifth of respondents felt that upper-caste Muslims maintained a distance from them, and a quarter of "Dalit Muslims" went through similar experiences with upper-caste Hindus.

Caste-related prejudices are found among all religious communities - including Sikhs - in India. Parsis are possibly an exception.

"But a belief that caste is a Hindu phenomenon since caste system derives legitimacy from Hindu religious texts, has dominated thinking of governments and academia since the colonial period," says Prashant K Trivedi.

So he and his co-researchers believe that "Dalit Muslims" - and Christians - deserve affirmative action benefits like their Hindu outcaste counterparts.

The moral of the story: you can try to leave caste in India, but caste refuses to leave you.

Pork Festival in India by Hindus Turn Into A Joke As No Muslims Protest

11/3/2016

Kerala doesn't care about beef or about pork or about chicken or about seafood or about vegetarians. This is something right wing Hindu political parties in India don't seem to realize. In the aftermath of the Kerala Bhavan fiasco in Delhi, an incident in Kerala went unnoticed.
The Hanuman Sena, a political outfit that believes itself to be the moral guardian of Kerala, organized a Pork Festival at Kozhikode on Monday, October 26. This festival was in response to a number of Beef Festivals that have been organized in Kerala recently.

The Hanuman Sena expected Muslims to come out and oppose the festival. After all, 24% of Kerala is Muslim and pork is considered unclean by them. So the festival was organized, pork was dished out, and a number of Hanuman Sena workers sat holding plates with pork delicacies waiting for the protests to erupt.
How many people protested, you ask. Zero. That's right. ZERO.

To make matters worse, the Hanuman Sena workers realized that no one was actually eating the pork. Not even their own party members. A lot of pork was wasted that day.

What the Hanuman Sena didn't take into account is that pork is not part of a staple diet in Kerala. Beef and seafood are the primary sources of food for people in Kerala (all religious groups: Hindus, Muslims and Christians). All the beef festivals that have been taking place in Kerala have a lot of Hindus eating beef while pork hardly ever features in Kerala kitchens.

The next time the Hanuman Sena wants to have a festival it should consider organizing a Duck Festival. Everyone likes to eat duck in Kerala. It would serve as a common meeting ground in Kozhikode where people from all communities could come and enjoy food and have a civilized discussion.

To sum it all up: Hanuman Sena kills a lot of pigs, waits for Muslims to protest, throws away cooked meat because no one protests. Lot of pork gets wasted.

India's human rights watchdog said more than a dozen tribal women were raped by police in restive Chhattisgarh state with the victims' lawyer slamming authorities over delays in arresting the accused.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said on Sunday at least 16 women were "victims of rape, sexual and physical assault" after it concluded an investigation into reports that police attacked several villages in Bijapur district in the central Indian state during an operation against communist rebels in October 2015.

"Prima facie, human rights of the victims have been grossly violated by the security personnel of the government of Chhattisgarh, for which the state government is vicariously liable," the government commission said in a statement.

The NHRC said it was in the process of recording the testimonies of 20 more victims who were allegedly sexually assaulted during the incident.

India is fighting thousands of armed communist rebels in the so-called "Red Corridor", which passes through swaths of resource-rich areas of central and eastern India and is mostly inhabited by underprivileged tribes.

Several media reports at the time said police officers had raped or sexually assaulted at least 40 women in five villages, and destroyed and looted homes during the anti-Maoist operation. Chhattisgarh is about 1,200km southeast of the capital, New Delhi.

Reports said 11 women were gang-raped, including a 14-year-old girl and a pregnant woman.

Police launched an investigation over the allegations, but no arrests have been made yet.

Kishore Narayan, who is representing 14 victims, told AFP news agency the panel had backed their claims and accused the police of deliberately shielding the culprits.
"The victims gave the names of the policemen involved in the barbarity but nothing has happened. They carried a sham investigation and are trying to obfuscate the case," Narayan said.

He said they have filed a petition in the Chhattisgarh High Court demanding an investigation by a special police team from outside the state.

Activists often accuse Indian security forces of committing gross human rights violations including extrajudicial killings, arson, and sexual assault in the conflict-torn region.

Communist fighters, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, say they are battling the Indian government for land, jobs, and other rights for poor tribal groups, with thousands of lives having been lost in the decades-old insurgency.

Indian Hindu Terrorists Bailed Because Their Victim Muslim's Religion Was a "Provocation"

January 17, 2017

Bombay High Court's recent decision to grant bail to murder accused and the rationale used by judge has left the family of 28-year-old Mohsin Shaikh utterly stunned. While granting bail on 12, Justice Mridula Bhatkar observed that the victim's fault was that he belonged to another religion.

"I consider this factor in favor of the applicants/accused. More-over, the applicants/accused do not have any criminal record and it appears that in the name of the religion, they were provoked and have committed the murder," Justice Bhatkar observed.

Shaikh was brutally murdered by members of Hindu Rashtra Sena in June 2014 while he was on his way back from a mosque after offering prayers. 14 of 21 accused have already been granted bail by the court.

A case of murder was registered against the members of HRS at the Hadapsar police station and 21 HRS members, including their leader Dhananjay Jayram Desai alias Bhai, were arrested.

A report in Indian Express said that Justice Bhatkar on 12 January, while granting bail to Vijay Rajendra Gambhire, Ganesh alias Ranjeet Shankar Yadav and Ajay Dilip Lalge, noted that the accused had attended a meeting "prior to the incident of assault. The applicants/accused otherwise had no other motive such as any personal enmity against the innocent deceased Mohsin."

Her bail order stated, "...Dhananjay Desai was the one who was the speaker in the meeting and he instigated the audience... the transcript of the speech given by Dhananjay Desai was sufficient to show that he had incited feelings of religious discrimination. The meet was held... prior to the incident of assault."

In its chargesheet, however, the cops quoted at least two witnesses, who heard HRS members plan the attack.

The chargesheet said, "The activists were carrying hockey sticks, wooden batons etc. During the meeting, they started discussing that HRS president Dhananjay Bhai has said that Muslims should be thrashed for posting derogatory pictures of Shivaji Maharaj on Facebook. Their vehicles, shops should be damaged. They should not be allowed to do any business in the area. There should be terror of HRS in Hadapsar."

While the bail plea of Desai will come up for hearing in Bombay High Court on 1 February, the murder victim's family plans to challenge the bail order in the Supreme Court.

At least 34,651 cases of rape were reported across India last year, statistics released by the country's National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) have revealed.

The figures show that victims range from female children younger than six years old to women over 60 years, with those aged between 18 and 30 reporting the largest number of rape attacks - totaling almost 17,000.

Victims knew their alleged rapists in 33,098 of the 34,651 reported rape cases, or 95.5 percent, according to the figures, which also showed a slight decrease compared with the 36,735 rape cases reported in 2014.

There were also 4,437 cases of reported attempted rape last year.

But rights workers say that the figures are likely not an accurate representation of the scale of the problem, as stigma surrounding sex crimes means many attacks are not reported.

The Slow Road To Justice For India's Rape Victims

Despite promises to fast-track rape cases, many victims and survivors in India must wait years for a glimpse of justice.

By Neha Tara Mehta - 18 August 2016

Some tattered sheets of paper protected from the city's monsoon rains are all she has as proof of a rape case she filed against her landlord a year-and-a-half ago.

A mother of three, the 32-year-old wears thick vermillion on her forehead and keeps her head covered, her brown and green sari almost camouflaging her against the trees behind her.

She can't read any of the documents, but points to a stapled sheet of paper - her police complaint.

"I mustered the courage to file a rape complaint in February last year," she says. "I waited for something to happen after that, but the police dragged their feet on filing charges."

The woman must remain unnamed as Indian law prohibits the identification of a rape survivor.

After waiting for 10 months for the charges to be filed, she lodged a complaint against the police's inaction with the local Delhi government.

An official at the city's public grievance management system confirmed to Al Jazeera that after the local government intervened, the police finally filed charges in the woman's case in April this year - nearly 14 months after the original complaint.

Al Jazeera has a copy of the paper trail maintained by the local government in this case.

The long wait has taken a toll on the woman. Sometimes she flies into fits of rage, she says. At other times she cries uncontrollably. Then there is the constant wrath of her husband.

"I am lucky that he hasn't thrown me out. But he can't forgive me for reporting my rape," she says. "He says I should never have gone to the police because there is no justice in sight for us."

Nearly four years after the fatal gang rape of "Nirbhaya", a 23-year-old medical student, on a moving bus jolted the country into passing a tough new anti-rape law, sexual violence against women continues to make headlines.

Nearly100 rapes are reported each day but only one in four rape casesleads to a conviction.

Another gang rape shook India on July 29 - this time of a mother and her teenage daughter, who were dragged from their car in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and taken to a nearby field, where they were assaulted.

At around the same time, a 21-year-old woman was allegedly raped for a second time by the same group of men who had raped her in 2013 - because she refused to accept their out-of-court settlement.

Promises of fast-tracking unfulfilled

One of the big ticket reforms after the 2013 Nirbhaya gang rape was the setting-up of fast-track courts for sexual assault cases. But for most rape survivors, the path to justice remains far from speedy.
Despite the intense media spotlight on the Nirbhaya case, her family isstill waiting for justice. Six men, including a teenager, were arrested for raping and assaulting the medical student with an iron rod in December 2012. One of the accused committed suicide in jail. The teenager was released in 2015 after serving three years in a correctional home.

A trial court sentenced the remaining four men - a gym instructor, an unemployed youth, a fruit seller and a bus cleaner - to death within nine months. The case then moved up to the High Court, which also awarded them the death penalty in March 2014, saying the crime they committed was "unparalleled in the history of criminal jurisprudence".

The convicts filed a plea against their sentence in the country's top court, the Supreme Court, and the case has been stuck there for more than two years.

"Even after all the changes to the law after my daughter's rape, rape cases are still being dragged in the country," says Asha Devi, Nirbhaya's mother.

"As a result of this, no one is scared of either the police or the courts and girls are being dragged out of their cars in front of their families and being raped," she adds.

"The fast-tracking of rape cases is the biggest promise that has been broken. Lawyers are big culprits in this - they keep postponing appearances," explains Ranjana Kumari of the Delhi-based Centre for Social Research.
Rape trials in India can proceed at a glacial pace, dragging onfor five to 10 years, if not longer. When a case is resolved relatively swiftly, it invokes stark comparisons with the many others that are not.

For instance, on August 4, a fast-track court in Delhi sentenced Mahmood Farooqui, a Bollywood film director, for raping an American woman in March 2015 - a speedy judgment that came a little over a year after the crime.

But fast-tracking a rape case involving a foreigner is not a favor done to her, says Vrinda Grover, her lawyer.

"She is at an acute disadvantage because she is not in her own country, is away from her family, friends, work. How long should she stay here to pursue her right to justice?"

Grover says that she has asked for the fast-tracking of other cases of sexual violence as well. But this rarely happens.
The lawyer is representing seven women in cases of gang rape that allegedly took place during religious riots in 2013. A fast-track court in Muzaffarnagar, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is hearing those. But after repeated adjournments, two of the women have refused to identify the accused, Grover says. And one of the complainants in Muzaffarnagar will not see justice. She died shortly after giving birth on August 10.

Police and courts: 'Meagre' legal understanding

Rape survivors filing complaints with the local Delhi government's public grievance monitoring system (PGMS) have reported delays in the police registration of their complaint, or an absolute refusal to register their complaint at all.

"Any delay in this [registration] would significantly reduce the chances of finding biological evidence of rape during the medical examination," explains Vijaya Chandra, Delhi's chief public grievance officer.

Even when the complaint is registered, survivors say the police can and sometimes do refuse to add certain charges - thereby reducing the seriousness of the complaint.

Chandra points towards rape cases in which the police initially only filed charges of kidnap or sexual harassment. The more serious charges of rape, gang rape and culpable homicide were added only subsequently, he says.

In one in five complaints received by the PGMS, women report receiving threats of retaliatory attacks by the accused. There are also cases of "inordinate" delays in filing of charges, says Chandra, leading some women to "disown" their complaints.

Ajitha K Anweshi, of the Anweshi Women's Counselling Centre, in the southern state of Kerala, says that both the police and courts "are given very meagre understanding of the various aspects of the new laws.

"A lot of corruption is involved in the process, which drastically affects the attainment of justice for the survivor."

Victim-blaming is another obstacle many survivors encounter at the police station.

In nearly 90 percent of the cases, the accused is known to the survivor. "If there is any indication of the fact that the perpetrator was known to the victim, investigating agencies try and find a way to pin the blame on the girl," says Ravi Verma of the International Center for Research on Women.

"By and large, when a woman goes to the police to report a rape, she is asked embarrassing personal questions," says Anuradha Kapoor of Swayam, a women's rights organisation based in Kolkata, in the eastern state of West Bengal.

"She has to relive her rape through these intrusive questions."

Sanalembi Devi, of Women in Governance, in the northeastern state of Assam, says: "There is a tendency to say that the girl has come with a fake case of rape to take revenge from a man. The police don't actually want to go searching for the accused."

Kumari, of the Centre for Social Research, says that while the police in Delhi have introduced several structural changes in how they deal with rape cases, police in other states remain lax.

"The Delhi police is registering complaints even at the cost of doubling its caseload. But states like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana need to do a lot more to sensitise their police force."

Al Jazeera made several attempts via phone and email to reach the Delhi police for comment and answers to submitted questions over a period of two weeks, but received no response.

'Poked and prodded like a piece of meat'

On paper, some of the literature dealing with forensic medicine and criminal jurisprudence has been revised and made more sensitive to rape survivors.

"It used to draw on colonial stereotypes to examine rape survivors and propagated the idea that the victim is a liar, and her body must be read against her words," says Kavita Krishnan, the secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association.

After the edits, she says, medical and law students who use this textbook will not be taught "terribly sexist" things about rape.

"A survivor is to be looked at in terms of the medical care she needs, rather than catching her body out in a lie."

But in practice, forensic biases persist.

"There is this notion that a woman who has been raped must carry some signs on her body that proves or disproves rape. In reality, there are no injuries in most cases of rape," says Padma Bhate-Deosthali of CEHAT, a health advocacy, training and research organisation in Mumbai.

Bhate-Deosthali points out that doctors carry out "mechanical" medico-legal exams. "Even if a woman reports oral penetration, the doctor might insist on the mindless collection of swabs from the vagina."

In a recent paper she co-authored, she wrote that medical professionals continue to document details such as the size of a woman's vaginal opening, old tears to the hymen and past obstetric history despite being prohibited to do so by law.

Many doctors tend to have their own guidelines for medico-legal exams in cases of sexual assault, agrees Kapoor, of Swayam.

"Women are poked and prodded like pieces of meat. We often see that doctors don't want to sign properly on medical exams because they don't want to be called into court."

There is also the confusion about treating survivors if they don't come into a hospital with a police complaint.

"By law, no hospital is allowed to deny treatment to survivors regardless of whether they have filed a complaint against the rape or not," says Trisha Shetty of She Says, a web portal that seeks to empower women against sexual violence.

"But we have encountered cases of government hospitals denying entry to victims if they don't have a police complaint registered."

2005 Delhi blasts - College to jail: How cops stole 12 years of his youth

NEW DELHI: Mohammad Rafiq Shah was a student of MA (final) at Shah-i-Hamadan, Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, when on the midnight of November 21, 2005, his world plunged into darkness.

He was picked up by officials of Delhi Police's special cell and Special Task Force (STF) of Kashmir Police.Two days later - after allegedly subjecting him to torture and humiliation at an STF camp - they brought him to Delhi. His crime: he was alleged to have planted a bomb in a DTC bus in Govindpuri on October 29, 2005, which injured many people.

Twelve years later, when he walked free on Thursday - after additional sessions judge Reetesh Singh acquitted him of all charges - the police were facing serious questions of credibility and human rights violations. Rafiq's claim that "he was made an accused to assuage the public perception that Delhi Police was incompetent to act against terrorism" and that "he was a vulnerable target... made a scapegoat" rang true. Police, it seems, deliberately ignored his alibi at every step to prove their case . They brushed aside his plea that it could be proved he was in his class on the day of the blast. It relied on dubious witness es who ended up contradicting themselves, exposed Rafiq to many people when he was in custody before a test identification parade (TIP) could be conducted and suppressed inconvenient facts.

TOI had as early as on February 12, 2006, raised the question whether it "could be a case of harried cops under pressure to show results, targeting an innocent boy?" In a front-page report, "Delhi bomber was in class on October 29", we had reported that Rafiq was actually attending his MA classes in his college in Srinagar. It was also reported that Rafiq had refused to appear for TIP as he had already been presented before some people, one of whom could be a witness in the Govindpuri blast.

The ground had been laid in Srinagar where Rafiq -according to his reply during framing of charges on January 21, 2008 which was cited by the judge - was allegedly forced to drink urine, kept naked and sexually abused, all in order to perhaps break his spirit. He had also alleged that rats were put in his trousers and attempts made to hurt his religious sentiments. "It seems I am being victimised only because I am a Kashmiri Muslim," he said, expressing his faith that justice would prevail and the police get exposed.

The court drew attention to Supreme Court's observation that when it comes to the notice of the investigating agency that a person accused of an offence has a good alibi, then it is the duty of that agency to investigate the genuineness of the plea of alibi and submit a report to the magistrate. "In the case of Manu Sharma versus the State (NCT) of Delhi....Supreme Court had observed that the criminal justice administration system in India places human rights and dignity for human life on a much higher pedestal. An accused is presumed to be innocent till proved guilty and is entitled to fairness and true investigation and a fair trial. The prosecution is expected to play a balanced role in the trial of crime and the investigation should be judicious, fair, transparent and expeditious to ensure compliance with the basic rule of law," the court asserted. Rafiq's case failed on all counts.

First Delhi Police produced a witness, Danbir Sharma, one of the passengers in the bus, on the basis of whose description, they got a portrait made. However, Sharma later couldn't identify Rafiq. The portrait then disappeared mysteriously - pointed out by the judge - even as another witness, Rajeev Sinha, surfaced.

His and Sharma's description of the bomber were at variance. Singh described the bomber as a young man, 22-24 years of age with a French-cut beard and prominent nose, who was wearing a cap with `New York' written on the right. He said he was wearing a white shirt with grey stripes and cotton trousers, either blue or black. Sharma, however, said the bomber was a boy of 5 feet, 10 inches height and had `sanwla' complexion. According to him, he was wearing a `coca cola' coloured shirt and white trousers.

The defence later claimed that Rafiq had a full-grown beard when he was arrested. It was alleged that on November 25, 2005, inspector Badrish Dutt brought a barber to the special cell office and got his beard trimmed to resemble a French cut. He then took a photo of his on his cellphone.

Significantly , Rafiq had refused to participate in a TIP on the ground that he had been exposed to many people while in custody at Lodi Colony and his photographs taken. He particularly mentioned a man wearing spectacles with his lawyers later alleging in court that it was Sinha, a planted witness. Sinha later accepted that he wore spectacles.

Sinha had produced a ticket to prove his presence on the bus that day . This had been left unverified by the police for long though it could have checked its authenticity with the depot manager and the registers he maintained quite easily. It chose not to do so.

The police wrote to the Registrar, University of Kashmir, on February 17, 2006, regarding verification of admission and attendance of Rafiq but chose to forget about it in court. Later, it was claimed that because of vacations, the information could not be procured from the university . However, the judge saw through the charade. DCP S K Tewari had on February 27 - just 10 days after writing the first letter - asked the Registrar "Whether " A" or "P" is marked in the attendance register of the class?" The court said this question could not have been put to the Registrar unless Tewari had access to the attendance records - the ones later produced by the defence and seen by the court - and hence the vacation plea for not being able to verify Rafiq's presence "seems to be false".The court said that in all probability the records had been collected by the police.

The police claimed the other accused, Mohammad Hussain Fazili - who too was acquitted - had led them to Rafiq. Rafiq, however, told the court that he met Fazili for the first time on November 21, 2005, at the STF camp. Fazili, too, denied taking the cops to Rafiq and claimed he was himself misled into believing by inspector Badrish Dutt that he was wanted in connection with an inquiry in a case under the Wildlife Protection Act. He too ended up in jail for 12 years.

Rats In Pants, Made To Drink Urine, Called A Terrorist: The Shocking Abuse Of Rafiq Shah In Police Custody

20/02/2017

Barely three weeks after the serial bomb blasts in Delhi killed 67 people and injured over 200 in October 2005, Mohammed Rafiq Shah was picked up by a joint team of officers from the Delhi Police Special Cell and Kashmir Police's Special Task Force. Later, Shah would recall how the officers barged into his Srinagar home around midnight, beat up his family members, and bundled him into a police car.

Police Torture

"I was forced to drink urine instead of water, kept naked and forced to suck private parts of body (sic) of other co-accused," he told the court in 2008, when he was being charged with planting a bomb in a DTC bus on 29 October 2005. "Rats were poured into my trousers. Police officials were laughing and taking my naked photographs with their mobile phones."

Shah, then a masters student of Kashmir University's department of Islamic Studies, repeatedly told the police officers and the court that he was in fact attending classes in Srinagar at the time the blasts took place in Delhi. Despite his attendance record submitted by four of his professors, the case went to trial, and Shah stayed in jail for 11 years until he was acquitted by a trial court in Delhi on 16 February, 2017.

"When I was crying for help, they used to tell that (sic) every Kashmiri is a terrorist," Shah told the court.

"To shake my religious sentiments, (sic) small pig was brought in got my whole body touched with it. After that I was locked along with the small pig in a single cell," Shah told the court.

Crucial 'Loss' Of Evidence

The local police, in its investigation, relied on a witness who had apparently provided a physical description of the man who planted the bomb in the DTC bus, and had even helped the cops draw a sketch of the accused. However, the witness told the court that he had only seen the bomber's back, and could not identify the person. The portrait too, disappeared from the police file, and was never shown in court.

The Delhi Police Special Cell claimed they never saw such a portrait even though the case file was transferred to them within a couple of days after the blasts. The police did not try to conduct a 'test identification parade' (TIP) through this witness either, where the witness could have picked the accused from a lineup of suspects.

The police did try to conduct a TIP through another witness who claimed to have seen the bomber, but his description of the man he saw was completely different from that of the other witness. Shah refused to be part of the TIP, alleging that the police exposed him to this witness several times so that he could 'correctly' identify him, a common technique in police procedure in which the witness is sometimes tricked into believing that he has seen the suspect before.

Shoddy Investigation

At the same time, despite statements by Kashmir University professors who said Shah was attending his classes in Srinagar when the blasts took place in Delhi, one of the police investigators told the court that he did not know Shah was a student there. Shockingly, the cop had actually written a letter to Kashmir University asking for Shah's attendance records, as revealed in court.

The police never followed up on this line of investigation, which established that Shah was not present in Delhi at the time of the crime and was one of the main reasons why he was acquitted last week. The court called the police's explanation for not following up on his alibi "rather lame to say the least".

Unlike other communities of colour in the United States, it has not been so easy for south Asian Americans to organise and act as one.

The very complexity of south Asia and the myriad internal politics make mobilisation a difficult issue. Even during my time in Atlanta conducting ethnographic research on the south Asian American sporting community, organisations like South Asians for Unity struggled to collectively engage the heterogeneous ethnic, class, and religious south Asian American community in Atlanta. Sikh American elders and I (a Christian Tamil) shared a sentiment of feeling minimally included in the discussions about peace on the subcontinent.

Thus, even the coming together as south Asian Americans during these precarious times is difficult. Similarly, in her work on Asian Americans, Linda Vo, in Mobilising Asian America (Temple University Press, 2004), illuminates the struggle with organising the multiple nationalities, ethnicities, languages, and histories of migration into one political voice. Taking Vo’s important work and extending it to understand south Asian American life in the US proves informative and allows us to make sense of contemporary events, such as the Hindu support of Donald Trump.

While south Asian America is not singular nor uniform nor tied politically to a single bloc, I argue here that the small segments who support Trump, particularly Hindu fundamentalists and nationalists, seek wages from that relationship that will not secure rights for the rest of south Asian America, especially Muslim Americans.

Diverse group

As I have noted in my book, Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity (New York University Press, 2016), South Asian Americans come from various nations, various diasporic locations (such as the Indo-Guyanese, Trinidadians, and from Africa), a wide spectrum of religious backgrounds, and many ethnic groups, while speaking multiple languages and dialects.

In addition, people hailing from south Asia and its many diasporic locations have not migrated to the United States at the same time and do not all share the same capital, social status, and access to resources and wealth. For example, the team Maryland Five Pillars won several championships during my period of research; this team was made up of high-ranking professional Muslims and Hindus who were Indian American.

The team Sand Brothaz in Atlanta contained Sikh Americans, a Lebanese American, and Muslim South Asian Americans—all communities who faced the brunt of post-9/11 racial violence. The main team I competed with, team Atlanta Outkasts, was composed of mostly lower-middle-class young Muslim Pakistani Americans who did not have a traditional college degree.
But targeted as one

Yet, as the post-9/11 racial hysteria has shown us, regardless of one’s respective background, south Asian Americans were/are targeted as “terrorists” and perceived as a “danger” to the country. Organisations like Desis Rising Up and Moving (in New York City) and Raksha (out of Atlanta) stand as examples of groups that work across the ethnic, class, sexual, and religious spectrum to advocate for social justice. They offer us remarkable ways of living and organising in a United States that is multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious.

In contrast, Hindu fundamentalists and Hindu nationalists present a starkly different political position and alliance. As a result of their financial clout and representational power in government and business, they have monopolised the conversation about south Asia by conflating south Asia, India, and Hindu.

With a Hindu fundamentalist party in power in India, the wave of such conservatism and violence washes up easily onto the shores of the United States through transnational connections. The same fundamentalism shaping Indian politics finds a home with the Hindu Indian American community with their anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Thus, it should come as no surprise, regardless of how disappointing it is, that the Republican Hindu Coalition in New Jersey and their leader Shalabh Kumar hosted a Bollywood fundraiser titled “Humanity United Against Terror” for then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Oct. 15.

The event combined Bollywood dance performances with the discourse of the “global war on terror” to showcase Hindu Americans as the “good” south Asian American community in opposition to the dangerous Muslims. The audience members arrived and had a seat on chairs adorned with signs saying “Trump for Hindu Americans” and “Trump Great for India.” During one particular skit, when the Hindus are attacked by terrorists (read as Muslim), US “soldiers” (Hindu Americans dressed in combat gear) show up to rescue them with the Stars and Stripes flying the background. Soon thereafter the US national anthem is played.

Racial categorisation

However, as we know, American-ness is never a promise fulfilled for communities of colour. This desperate attempt to show US patriotism by combining the symbolic meanings of the American flag with anti-Muslim ideology does not guarantee full inclusion into the US nation. It is as fleeting as the “facts”/“alternative facts” that Trump spews.

What the years preceding 9/11 and its aftermath have shown us is that the racial logic in the United States substantiates whiteness through the demonisation, marginalisation, and exclusion of other communities of colour, which David Roediger illustrated in his foundational text Wages of Whiteness (Verso, 1991).

Anthropologist Junaid Rana, in Terrifying Muslims (Duke University Press, 2011), illuminates the ways in which race in the US incorporates religion in order to create expansive categories of exclusion. He shows that Latinos, African Americans, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and others were captured under this racial category of “terrorist.”

By supporting Donald Trump and his Islamophobia-informed policy initiatives, such a move does not really provide safety from the common, white American who sees the brown phenotype as conclusive proof of the dangerous foreigner.

Given this generalising conclusion about vilifying brown bodies, Hindus have not fared well before, during, or after 9/11. Although 9/11 provided the fodder for Hindu nationalist proclamations of the Muslim danger and the good Hindu, people’s everyday lives tell us something much more complicated and convoluted.

Elitism on display?

The danger to Hindu Americans in particular and South Asian Americans in general in the late 1980s in New Jersey were not Muslims or other people of colour. Rather, the group Dot Busters consisted of young white men who terrorised Hindu communities by targeting their acts of violence against people, especially women, who have the dot—bindi.

To delve deeper into US history, the census category of “Hindoo” stood as the marker of unassimilable difference in the United States in the early 1900s. With my own ethnographic study of Atlanta, with the rise of meth drug use, extra-judicial powers were given after 9/11 to local police officers, which led to the jailing of a disproportionate number of south Asian convenience mart employees, regardless of religious background. The disproportionate number of south Asians in Atlanta picked up and jailed as possible meth providers in relation to white convenience mart owners illustrates the ambiguity and expansiveness of such racial practices.

These moments from the past and present show how the push for a Muslim registry and support from Hindu Americans is ill-informed at best and utterly bigoted in reality. “Muslim” as a broad swath of racial prejudice does not protect everyday Hindu Americans, although it might offer solace to a very elite group.

Such elitism in the Hindu fundamentalist community aligns perfectly with the anti-poor, anti-black, and anti-Muslim rhetoric of Donald Trump. High-caste Brahmanic leaders in the Hindu nationalist movement clearly illustrated this past year their subsequent support of caste violence against the Dalit community, violence against Muslim Indians, and efforts to diminish political power from other religious minorities in India.

We can glean from this Hindu American support of Trump that it is more about entrenching a solid, powerful, transnational class of Hindu elites, which does nothing to provide support or protection to working-class Hindu Americans who face the wrath of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hysteria.

Uncomfortable similarities

Such authoritarian, fascist, and populist practices connect US history and Indian history in many problematic ways. Even before racists spray-painted swastikas on my campus of the City College of New York in December 2016, anti-Semitism was part of the very core of the American fabric.

We need only think back to the case of the ships of Jewish refugees coming to US shores to escape Adolf Hitler that were turned back to the death camps in Hitler’s Germany. While the United States sent large scores of Jews into the horror of the Holocaust, Hindus in India have a very interesting history at that same time.

Instead of opposing the eugenics and genocidal project in Nazi Germany, the Hindu right sided with and celebrated the Nazi regime. They did so under the premise that Hindus in particular and Indians in general were Aryans—the best race.

I noticed this first-hand in 1997 when I was teaching at the Kodaikanal International School in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. Teaching social studies and independent study courses, I met a student who surprised me with his behaviour in class. We were talking about the Middle East, Islam, and religious diversity while attending to the Middle Eastern experience of WWII.

The next day he came to class with a proud smile on his face. He entered the classroom and shouted, “Heil Hitler!” It seemed so commonplace to him and I was flabbergasted, frustrated, and angered. Even in some quotidian aspects of living in India, the embrace of Aryan-ness, by a Tamil student who is often stigmatised for being too dark compared to North Indians, demonstrates the ways in which Aryan-ness, whiteness, and religious conservatism work hand-in-hand with policies promised by Donald Trump.

Precarious times

Indeed, the racist history of mid-20th century Germany continues to be intertwined with the Hindu nationalist movement, through which Hindu Americans attempt to align themselves as more “Aryan,” read as more human, than Muslims. Even in California, as described by journalist Jennifer Medina in the May 6 issue of the New York Times, there is a debate about whether to talk about the south Asia region in US high school texts as “south Asia” or as just “India.”

The push for India-centric readings and curriculum erases the fluid nature of that region throughout world history and the multiple movements of people across that region. It does, however, further consolidate the region under the dominance of India and Hinduism. This is a move to forcefully insert India and Hinduism without accounting for any of the violence in the subcontinent’s history. In this precarious time globally, with Modi in India, the Brexit process in the UK, Trump in the US, Duterte in Philippines, Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, Al-Assad in Syria and a general shift towards undemocratic forms of politics, these social formations further enact violence against the masses and politically vulnerable populations.

Furthermore, the choice to align with Donald Trump’s policies and his white supremacist, multi-billionaire dollar team does not secure or guarantee the whiteness and Aryan-ness that these folks claim. As we saw with the 1923 case of Sikh man Bhagat Singh Thind, who tried to naturalise through south Asian classification as “Caucasian” but was turned down for citizenship on the grounds of being culturally and phenotypically not white according to the “common white man,” the rising violence against communities of colour in the contemporary moment means that white men have consolidated American-ness once again as white, middle-class, Christian, male, thin, and heterosexual (Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, Crossing Press 1984).

While south Asians might claim their class status, heterosexuality, and male bodies as a way to enter into American-ness, they can never fully occupy Christianity and whiteness. This was mostly blatantly the case with the Hindu grandfather, Sureshbhai Patel, beaten up by police in Madison, Alabama, in February 2015 without having even spoken a word.

Thus, the very whiteness and Aryan-ness Hindu nationalists espouse that aligns with the posters they carry of Trump with a bindi on his forehead does not equivalently align with the spread of this global whiteness. This Aryan-ness proves important in staking a claim in the racially stratified society of the United States while maintaining upper-caste Hindu hegemony back in India. Their claim to Aryan-ness does not fully secure rights and citizenship for Hindus and other south Asians in the US, despite what they might want to believe, who are already seen as too foreign and always a threat to the US national fabric.

Way ahead

So, what other options are there? In the course of my research, I witnessed the many constellations and social formations on the basketball court that defied the binary politics of south Asia. Instead of Hindu-Muslim bi-partisan politics, the pleasures of competition and shared histories of exclusion on the basketball court created a strong sense of fraternity. Thus, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Christians, and Muslims from various ethnic backgrounds played, affirmed a sense of community, and expanded their social network through the pleasures of sport.

Through such intimate social interactions on the court and the pleasures of competition, their sporting communities extended into other aspects of their social lives. They formed a network where they could rely on each other for a variety of reasons, such as a job, moving to a new city, philanthropy, and more. For example, when there was a young Indian American girl in need of a marrow transplant, the Chicago south Asian American community reached out to their North American network to find a match.

Likewise, with the rise of fascism that needs racism, homophobia, sexism, classism, and xenophobia for substance, Hindu American communities need to reflect on the activism of black and Latinx communities in the 1960s that made possible the opening of US borders through the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act.

Additionally, to take pleasure in democratic principles, struggling with and organising across the racial, gendered, sexual, class, ability, and ethnic spectrum is the only way to secure a truly democratic society. It is time to create identities and categories of belonging in South Asia that can also open up possibilities for transnational justice, equality, and democracy.

History is not on the side of Hindu fundamentalists in the United States. Rather, history has shown that Aryan myths of lighter skin tones, religious identification, caste status, or financial wealth will not stave off white supremacy. Let us stop sipping on this concoction that Modi and Trump share and rather jump into the waters of civil rights organising with BlackLivesMatter, TransLivesMatter, Dreamers, Muslim civil rights activists, and immigration and refugee rights activists for a taste of democratic living.

Claiming that the activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) have been indicted in at least 13 terror cases across India, former Maharashtra inspector general of police S M Mushrif on Thursday described the BJP's ideological mentor as India's number one terrorist organisation.

"RSS activists have been chargesheeted in at least 13 cases of terror acts in which RDX has been used. If organisations like Bajrang Dal are taken into the account, then the number of such cases goes up to 17," Mushrif said at an event in Kolkata.

"The RSS is India's number one terrorist organisation, there is no doubt on this," said Mushrif, referring to the 2007 Mecca Masjid bombing in Hyderabad, the 2006 and 2008 Malegaon blasts in Maharashtra and the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings among others.

Mushrif, however, asserted that "saffron terror" had no bearing on which party was in power.

"The RSS as a terror organisation has nothing to do with political power. It is immaterial which party is in power. It is the system that is working, it's the Brahminical system. And when I say Brahminical, it doesn't mean the Brahmin, it's the mentality, the attitude to dominate and oppress," he said.

However, Mushrif was not in agreement with the view that intolerance was rising in recent times. "Intolerance has been going on for a long time. There have been many severe bigger incidents earlier, I don't understand why it is being highlighted now," he asked.

Reiterating his claims that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) masterminded the killing of Hemant Karkare, who was probing the involvement of Hindu radicals in terror acts, during the Mumbai terror attack in 2008, Mushrif called for a people's movement to establish the truth behind the killing of the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad chief.

"There is clinching evidence about the IB's involvement but all efforts to establish that have been defeated. Our efforts to call for an independent probe have always been defeated. Unless there is a massive public movement, this will never be established," said Mushrif, who made the sensational claims in his book "Who Killed Karkare".

Mushrif, along with national award winning music director and former Trinamool Lok Sabha member Kabir Suman, was speaking at an event to commemorate Karkare's martyrdom.

Rajasthan Education Minister Vasudev Devnani has said cow is the only animal that inhales as well as exhales Oxygen. He made the claim while speaking at the Hingonia Goshala during an event organised by Akshay Patra foundation Saturday.

The minister underscored the 'scientific significance' of the cow. "Gai ekmatra prani hai jo oxygen grahan karta hai, aur oxygen his chodta hai (The cow is the only animal that takes in oxygen and also releases oxygen)," he said, adding that "there is a need to understand the scientific significance of the cow and ensure that the message reaches all people..."

The minister's assertion about cows goes against the claims made by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation, which in a 2006 report held livestock, including cows, responsible for large amounts of GHG emissions, from their digestive systems as well as manure decay.